Where to enable virtual memory windows 8.1. swap file

In the section on the question Windows 8.1 paging file given by the author overgrown the best answer is What's the problem ??? The system itself sets the size of the paging file it needs. Swap must be disabled if an SSD is installed under the system
Maybe you have a crooked assemblage? I have the original Windows 8.1 installed - it's just a miracle, I can't get enough of the fast, stable, excellent work of this operating system !!!

Answer from Prosorushka[guru]
The system uses as much RAM as it needs to execute commands. The swap file (swap-file, paging-file) is a file on the hard disk (pagefile.sys), used by the OS to store parts of programs and data files that do not fit in RAM. When the OS starts using swap, it's not buzzing. Bottom line, I don't see the point in your question.


Answer from 03 [guru]
turn it off and


Answer from Neurologist[newbie]
use windowsfix.ru


Answer from Neekodim[newbie]
The swap file is installed:
twice the amount of RAM if the amount of RAM is less than 4 GB
one and a half times the amount of RAM if the amount of RAM is more than 4 GB
If you had 6 GB, you need to set 9 GB
And in your case, you need to allocate 12 GB.
This is necessary so that the paging file is not defragmented. This process slows down your system.

System optimization is very important for the device as a whole, and therefore today we will analyze such a topic as the Windows 8 paging file. It requires correct and reasonable settings, otherwise the system will slow down even with an excess of free memory.

Software and hardware OP

As you know, the overall health of a computer is based on the software and hardware of the device. Among the hardware component there is such a device as random access memory (RAM). Its purpose is generally similar to human short-term memory - the retention, exchange and manipulation of information that is temporary and is not intended to be entered into a permanent memory device.

If the processor initiates commands and executes them, then RAM is the place where running programs “live”. Every application, add-on or downloaded page will be stored there. Like any other device, RAM has its own indicators, the main of which in the aspect of interest to us is its volume.

As the OP fills up, the performance of the computer will deteriorate, since there is not enough free memory and the gadget will freeze every now and then. Of course, in order to return everything back to normal, you will need to clear a certain amount of virtual space. But there are other ways, such as the swap file in Windows 8 (and not only in this version) and an additional device, which will be discussed below.

The paging file is a software analog of a RAM device. It creates virtual memory, which is reserved by the system and used in the same way as the OP. It would seem that a sensible idea that will help reduce the cost of a computer and make it a little more functional, but no. It seems so only at first glance.

How to increase the swap file in Windows 8: Video

How to use a third party device

If the swap file is debugged incorrectly, it will heavily load both the operating system and the OP with a hard disk (HDD). If you do not take this into account for a long time, then it is likely that the hard drive will simply crumble from an excess of voltage, since the file is stored on the hard drive.

There is also an option to use a third device. You can use a USB flash drive as a semi-software-semi-hardware RAM expander. In fact, this is the implementation of a program file by means of a hardware device.

The following happens: in automatic mode, the OS makes a system device out of a flash drive, which has a relatively high information transfer rate when exchanging with the motherboard. Ultimately, the system drives the same paging file there. The output is an OP from a regular USB flash drive.

Yes, this is not a solution to all problems, but in some cases it can greatly simplify life.

config pagefile.sys

To start debugging, you first need to find the appropriate settings panel. To do this, open "My Computer" and on the top panel find and click on "System Properties".

On the left edge of the window, look for the inscription "Advanced system settings" and click on it.

A small window will be displayed. We are interested in the "Advanced" tab. In the first block, called "Performance", click on the "Settings" button.

A new window will appear on top of the previous one. Here, as in the previous position, we will be interested in the "Advanced" tab.

Going to the desired tab, in the "Virtual memory" block, find and click the "Change" button.

And finally, the paging file configuration screen will be displayed. By default, it will be set automatically. If you need to configure it yourself, then the first thing you need to do is uncheck the “Auto-configuration” box.

By removing the automatic mode, we get the opportunity to independently assign various parameters. It remains only to set the values ​​\u200b\u200bto the required ones, click "OK" and reboot the system.

How to disable swap file Windows 8: Video

It tells how to determine the optimal size of the paging file, what to do with SSD drives and how to set the file size on Windows 7, 8 and 10 (as well as XP and Server - the steps are almost identical).

This article covers the following steps for pagefile.sys(as well as swapfile.sys in later versions of Windows): defrag, migrate, shutdown, and cleanup. Does it make sense to create several paging files on Windows, on which drives it is better to place them and what all this can lead to in terms of improving system performance.

Location and visibility of swap files

By default, the swap files pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys are located in the root of the disk where Windows itself is located (all system folders). Since pagefile.sys is a hidden system file, it is invisible by default: you need to enable show hidden files and folders. In Windows 7, the display of hidden files and folders can be configured in the Control Panel.

Enabling invisible (hidden) files and folders in Windows 7:

  1. Push button Start.
  2. Go to Control Panel, then to the section Decoration and personalization.
  3. Select "Folder Options" -> "View" -> "Advanced Options".
  4. Select "Show hidden files, folders and drives".
  5. Click OK to save changes and exit the menu.

AT Windows 10 You can enable the display of hidden files and folders in Explorer:

  1. In the top menu of the explorer, go to the tab View.
  2. Select section Options, in the window that opens, open the tab again View.
  3. Open "Advanced Options" and uncheck the "Hide protected operating system files" checkbox.
  4. Check the box next to "Show hidden files".
  5. Click "Apply", then "OK" to save the changes.

The Folder Options menu should look something like this:

Completely disable pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys

The question of the need to completely disable paging files equally often worries Windows 7 and 10 users when there is a high-speed or sufficient amount of RAM (RAM). In the article about it has already been clarified that it does not make sense to completely disable it.

Reasons not to completely disable sfop (paging):

  1. Some programs and games, and even Windows itself, are designed to work with the paging file; without it, unexpected errors and glitches may appear.
  2. With enough RAM (8-16 GB or more, depending on tasks), 300-500 MB of data will be written to pagefile.sys per day. In other words, the user does not sacrifice anything.
  3. With enough RAM, you can set a file size limit of 1 GB and not worry about it in the future.

If the desire to turn off the paging file has not disappeared, in Windows 10 it is done like this:

  1. Right click menu Start, select item System.
  2. In the left menu, click "Advanced system settings" (you need to have administrator rights).
  3. Click Options, open tab Additionally.
  4. In the "Virtual memory" window, click on the button Change…
  5. Select a line below No swap file.
  6. Click Ask, then Yes in the warning window that appears.
  7. Click OK in the Virtual Memory settings window to save changes.

All changes will take effect after you restart your computer. Just in case, you can check if pagefile.sys has really been deleted and is missing from the root of the system. If in the future any game or program requires this file or starts to give errors about the lack of virtual memory, you can turn the pagefile back on the same menu.

AT Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 To change or delete the swap file, you need to:

  1. Right-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop, select Properties.
  2. Select "Advanced system settings" from the left menu.
  3. Go to the "Advanced" tab at the top of the window.
  4. In chapter Performance click on the button Options.
  5. Go to the "Advanced" tab again. In the "Virtual Memory" section of the window, it will say what the maximum size the paging file can occupy at the moment.
  6. By default, these versions of Windows set the size of the pagefile to be equal to the RAM. Click Change to set other values.
  7. Uncheck the box "Automatically choose the size of the paging file."
  8. Select item No swap file to turn it off completely.
  9. Click OK and restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

As already mentioned, Windows 7/8 does not work very well without a pagefile.sys file in the system. It is better to leave the swap size 512-1024 megabytes for system purposes. This rule works regardless of the amount of RAM on the computer.

Migration and defragmentation (breakdown)

Transferring a paging file from one disk to another is performed on the same page, where the file size is selected and paging is turned on / off. You can select any of the drives connected to the system, including SSDs. The changes will take effect after a reboot: Windows will create a new file on the specified drive when the system starts.

Interestingly, on the official Microsoft website there is only about transferring the paging file. The article contains instructions for Windows XP, no new information was added on this topic.

The instructions below will help move pagefile.sys to another drive in Windows 7, 8/8.1 and 10:

  1. Right-click on the My Computer icon on the desktop, go to Properties.
  2. Select "Advanced system settings" on the left, then go to the "Advanced" section.
  3. In chapter Virtual Memory press the button Change(at the same time, you can set the optimal file size, focusing on the suggestions of Windows and).
  4. Uncheck the box "Automatically choose the size of the paging file", if it was checked there.
  5. Listed Drive [volume label] select disk, select below Specify size and set the file size in megabytes.
  6. Click Ask and OK to save changes. Click OK in the system message window, if it appears.

You can select several disks at once and set a different size for swapping in each of them. In this case, there will be several pagefile.sys documents that Windiws will use as it sees fit. For the average user, it makes no sense to perform splitting. Defragmenting the paging file into several separate files will not speed up the system and will not give any performance gain.

In some cases, a file of the minimum size is still needed on the system disk, and not on a high-speed SSD or flash. This allows you to save the ability to diagnose the system when critical errors (BSOD) occur, since debugging data can be written there.

A file split across several disks will look like this:

Swap file on flash drive

Separately, I would like to mention such a practice as transferring the swap file to a USB flash drive. Firstly, it is quite problematic to do this, since Windows will not list removable storage media in the list of disks for the paging file. Secondly, even if you still succeed in transferring pagefile.sys to a USB flash drive, this may not give any significant result.

On the one hand, the speed of USB 3.0 is really high, especially when compared with HDD:

  • USB 2.0 - up to 480 Mbps (60 Mbps)
  • USB 3.0 - up to 5 Gb/s (600 MB/s)
  • SATA Revision 2.0 - up to 3Gb/s
  • SATA Revision 3.0 - up to 6Gb/s

In reality, not every flash drive works even at maximum USB 2.0 speeds, not to mention 3.0. From a regular flash drive in such a situation, it will be possible to get a write / read speed of 30-100 Mb / s or even less. Compared to HDDs, not to mention SSDs, such speeds will not give any performance gain.

Clearing the contents of the swap file

When you turn off your computer, Windows erases all data that is in random access memory (RAM). Data from the paging file is not erased by default and remains on the hard disk when the system is turned off. Therefore, in some situations, third parties can access the information in this file.

For security purposes, you can force Windows to delete all the contents of pagefile.sys by overwriting all memory locations with zeros. In this case, potential attackers will not be able to get to important documents. At the same time, the owner himself will not be able to access information from the swap, including the information necessary for debugging.

There are two ways to force Windows to clear the contents of the swap file:

  • Using the settings Group Policy Editor.
  • By changing the value of the entries in Windows Registry Editor.

You should not climb into the Registry Editor without unnecessary need, especially if you have no experience with this section of the system. First, you should try to enable file cleanup using the instructions for Group Policy Editor.

This method only works for owners of Pro or Enterprise versions of Windows:

  1. Click Start, in the search bar enter gpedit.msc and open the file.
  2. In the Group Policy Editor that opens, go to the section Computer configuration, then in Windows configuration.
  3. Open Security > Local Policies > Settings on the left side of the window.
  4. On the right side of the panel, double click on the policy Shutdown: Clearing the virtual memory paging file.
  5. In the window that opens, select the item Turn on.
  6. Click OK to save changes. Changes will take effect after a system reboot.

If something went wrong, you can use Registry Editor:

  1. Click "Start", then "Run". In the window that appears, enter regedit and press the Enter button.
  2. In the registry editor that opens, find the key (on the left side of the window): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\ Control\ Session Manager\ Memory Management.
  3. Right-click in any free space on the right side of the window, select from the context menu New -> DWORD Value (32 bits).
  4. The new parameter must be named ClearPageFileAtShutdown.
  5. Double-click on the created parameter, in the window that opens, enter 1 in field Value, click OK to save the changes.

The finished work should look like this:

You must restart your computer for the changes to take effect. Windows will then clean up the contents of pagefile.sys each time the system is shut down. To disable clearing the paging file, you need to set the generated parameter ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 0 , or simply remove it from the registry. After removal (RMB -> Delete) Windows will restore the default value (no cleanup on shutdown).

Dear Alexey.

To change the paging file size in the Windows 8 operating system, you need to follow a series of simple steps, namely:

1. Right click on the icon My computer on the desktop and from the context menu select Properties.

2. In the computer properties menu, click on the link Additional system settings, go to the tab Additionally and in the section Performance click Options as in the illustration below.

3. In the options, go to the tab Additionally click Change, being in the subsection Virtual Memory, as in the example shown in the image below.

4. To make changes to the paging file, uncheck the box Automatically choose swap file size, check the box next to Specify size, fill in the fields Original size (MB) and Maximum size (MB), respectively, click on the button Ask as in the illustration below. Click OK. The paging file size has been changed.

Remember that the size of the paging file should be calculated based on the amount of RAM installed in your computer. The larger the computer's RAM, the correspondingly smaller the paging file should be. For example, if your computer has four gigabytes of RAM, the swap file should be no more than 768 megabytes. Personally, I have eight gigabytes of RAM in my laptop, thanks to which I generally work without a paging file.

The swap file (swap file, pagefile.sys) is a specially allocated place on the hard disk where data temporarily unloaded from random access memory (RAM) is stored. Unloading occurs when there is not enough RAM to meet the needs of the operating system and programs. The process of moving data between RAM and the swap file is controlled by the system. The paging file, together with RAM, make up the computer's virtual memory.

Size matters

The size of pagefile.sys in Windows 8 is dynamic by default: when there is little RAM, it decreases, when there is a lot, it increases. However, leaving this setting to the discretion of the system is not always optimal for PC performance. The fact is that read / write operations on the hard drive are much slower than in RAM, so if your computer is equipped with 8 or more gigabytes of RAM, you can completely refuse the paging file - this will positively affect system performance.

If you don’t have much RAM, you can’t completely turn off paging (swapping) - the computer will work even slower, constantly notifying you that the system does not have enough memory. In this case, the optimal swap file capacity should be between one (initial size) and two (maximum size) RAM.

If the paging file is automatically configured (at the option of the system), it can be up to three times the amount of RAM.

Static or dynamic?

Windows 8 allows you to set the paging file to a fixed, static size. If you have a fairly spacious hard drive, this is the best option. There are two reasons for this:

  • Dynamic resizing of the swap file takes time and CPU resources. If the size does not change, the swap will go faster.
  • A static page file is not fragmented, a dynamic page file is fragmented. In the first case, the data exchange between it and the RAM is much faster than in the second.

Where is the best place to put the swap file in Windows 8

If your PC has one hard drive

To maximize the performance of your computer, it is best to place the paging file on a separate, dedicated partition equal to twice the amount of RAM. It is desirable to format this partition in FAT32 and not use it for anything other than swapping.

If you have 2 hard drives or more

In this case, it is desirable to move the paging file to a physical drive that does not have Windows installed. This will speed up the processing of I / O requests and, as a result, increase system performance.

However, moving pagefile.sys from the system partition, as well as completely disabling it, can lead to another problem - Windows 8 will not be able to save crash dumps when system errors occur. What it warns about:

The message indicates the minimum capacity of pagefile.sys that is required to write dumps. The volume of 1 Mb, as in our example, will allow you to save only small memory dumps. To save the full ones, you will have to create a swap file equal to the amount of RAM.

How to change page file capacity in Windows 8

Open system properties in one of the following ways:

  • Right-click on the “Windows” icon (which replaced the “Start” button) and select “System” from the menu.

  • Right-click on the “This PC” icon on the desktop and select “Properties” from the context menu.

On the left side of the information about your computer window, click the link "Advanced system settings".

In the "Performance Options" window, go to the "Advanced" tab again and click "Change" under "Virtual Memory".

Here you can adjust the swap file size for each drive. The following options are available:

  • Specify the size of the swap file (initial and maximum) manually.
  • Set the size to the choice of the system.
  • Disable swap file.

Having marked the desired, click "Set".

The checkbox next to “Automatically choose the size of the paging file” disables manual settings. If you enable this option, the swap file size will be determined by the system selection for all drives.

One swap file is sufficient per physical disk, otherwise it will slow down the computer.

Reducing the size of the paging file, as well as completely disabling swapping, take effect after rebooting Windows 8.

How to move a swap file to another drive

  • Open the PC virtual memory settings window, as you did when changing the size of the swap file.
  • Uncheck the box next to the command "Automatically choose the size of the paging file", if it is checked.
  • In the “Drive [volume label]” box, select the desired partition (by default, the swap file is located where Windows 8 is installed).
  • Check the "Specify size" box. In the "Initial size" field, enter a value that is close to the recommended value, and in the "Maximum" field, enter twice as much. In the future, you can both increase and decrease these numbers.
  • Click the "Set" button and restart your computer.

As we said, if your PC has several physical disks, you can create 2 swap files - one for swapping, the second for writing debugging information on system errors. It is not recommended to create more than two - this will not speed up, but slow down the computer.

How to enable automatic cleanup of the swap file at system shutdown

Clearing the swap file when shutting down Windows 8 is one of the measures to protect information. While working on a computer, confidential user data, for example, personal passwords, payment information, and so on, can be stored in the paging file. If they are not removed in a timely manner, they can be stolen by intruders.

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